White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre held a news briefing on Friday, a day after two House committees moved ahead with contempt charges against Attorney General Merrick Garland for refusing to turn over audio from President Joe Biden's interview with a special counsel, advancing the matter after the White House's decision to block the release of the recording.
Watch the event in the player above.
In back-to-back hearings that nearly spilled into early Friday, the House Judiciary and Oversight and Accountability committees voted along party lines to advance an effort to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for not turning over the records. But the timing of any action by the full House, and the willingness of the U.S. attorney's office to act on the referral, remained uncertain.
The rapid sequence of events Thursday further inflamed tensions between House Republicans and the Justice Department, setting the stage for another round of bitter fighting between the two branches of government that seemed nearly certain to spill over into court.
If House Republicans' efforts against Garland are successful, he will become the third attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress. The White House slammed Republicans in a letter earlier Thursday, dismissing their efforts to obtain the audio as purely political.
WATCH: Biden uses executive privilege block GOP access to special counsel interview audio
"The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal — to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes," White House counsel Ed Siskel wrote in a scathing letter to House Republicans ahead of scheduled votes by the two House committees to refer Garland to the Justice Department for the contempt charges.
"Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate," Siskel added.
Garland separately advised Biden in a letter made public Thursday that the audio falls within the scope of executive privilege, which protects a president's ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect confidential communications relating to official responsibilities.
The attorney general told reporters that the Justice Department has gone to extraordinary lengths to provide information to the committees about special counsel Robert Hur's investigation, including a transcript of Biden's interview with Hur. But, Garland said, releasing the audio could jeopardize future sensitive and high-profile investigations. Officials have suggested handing over the tape could make future witnesses concerned about cooperating with investigators.